Giro d’Italia – Stage 11 – Ferrari puts remorse, and Cav, behind him.

Just a week after Mark Cavendish was outraged by a reckless move by Roberto Ferrari in the stage 3 sprint, Ferrari has beaten Cavendish in a near standing-start sprint from a crash in the final corner of today’s stage.

With 11km to go, the peloton had to tackle a poggio-like climb before the finish. The pace up the final climb was furious as Giovanni Visconti (MOV) launched a stunning attack which lifted the pace to break the peloton to pieces. Suddenly, many of the GC guys were thinking they may be able to steal some time against their rivals (F. Schleck lost 46 seconds) and a select group were storming down the mountain. However, one of those riders was Katusha’s Angel Vicioso and he did a remarkable job of controlling the pace for team mate and race leader Joaquim Rodriguez, as a select peloton regrouped.

Heading into the finale, Team Sky wrestled complete control of things until three extremely sharp final corners disrupted the flow. Sky managed to navigate the first two just fine, but on the third they slid wide and a number of riders crashed behind them. However, Mark Cavendish, Francesco Chichi and Roberto Ferrari were only slightly disrupted. In what looked like a standing start sprint, pursuing both Tomas Vaitkus (OGN) and the win, Roberto Ferrari left the other two sprinters long behind him and won the stage with surprising ease. Being too fast? That’s nothing to apologize about.